It was all so hard to take in. I understood that the state had its enemies – it never tired of telling us that – but I just hadn’t seen Nick as one of them. I hadn’t known him.

Whatever he had been doing for the Americans, though, I guessed he had stopped by the time we married. But then Lorelei had died and her death had somehow brought her and Nick’s activities to NatSec’s attention. Whether her death was itself connected to their work, or was the product of something else entirely, didn’t really matter – NatSec had learned about them.

‘What do you think the “big orders” were?’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Rachel said that’s what they had fought about. She and Lorelei.’ It was something so big they had come to blows. Yet, whatever it was, it didn’t appear to have happened yet.

‘I suppose it was all put on hold when she was taken in.’

‘I expect so.’ Perhaps that had been the final cause of Lorelei’s death: someone had wanted to stop the plan or to take it over … or anything, really. All those possibilities of which we had no idea.

We pulled into a station and waited. The lights flicked off and back on. A door slammed. From further down the corridor, we heard a man’s voice. ‘Your identity cards!’ It echoed through the train. Tibbot and I looked at each other, worried, and I pictured Larren on the telephone to whoever had transferred Rachel’s car to him in return for keeping her quiet in his asylum.

‘Two of them,’ Tibbot said, putting his head outside the compartment. ‘One’s on the platform.’

I knew that I should have stayed put and calmly handed over my card, crossed my fingers and bluffed it out. I knew that. But panic took hold of me.

I jumped up, slid back the door and bolted into the corridor, away from the voice. Tibbot ran after me and grabbed me by the arm just as I was about to enter the furthest compartment. ‘Calm down!’ he ordered me. ‘Breathe.’ He checked over his shoulder. Luckily the man on the platform had his back to us and the other wasn’t in sight.

‘Identity card,’ we heard again from one of the compartments.

‘I’m sorry, I have it here somewhere.’ It was a young man’s voice, a local accent.

‘What do we do if they recognize us?’ I asked furtively.

‘Come in and sit down.’ He pulled me into the next compartment. An old woman in a shawl was sitting alone. Trembling, she held her card out to us.

‘It’s all right, that’s not us,’ said Tibbot.

‘What do they want?’ she asked in a feeble voice.

‘Hard to say,’ Tibbot replied.

I shot him a glance. I wanted to tell the woman it was us they were coming for, that she was safe, even if we were not.